DOWNEY — There was a palpable mix of excitement and nerves across Downey Unified School District on Monday, as the district’s 20 schools reopened to students after more than a year of closure.

Teachers and staff stood anxiously posted at several entry ways to campus as students and their parents began to line the gates at Gauldin Elementary School.

“We are so excited, I felt like it was Christmas,” said Principal Sylvia Estrella. “All the staff, we’ve been really excited.”

It was a moment that many have been waiting for since DUSD initially closed its campuses on March 13 last year.

It’s been months of hard conversations and painstakingly combing through every imaginable detail for the district to be able to get to this point. With the moment now arrived, Estrella says that she is “100%” confident in the school’s and the district’s ability to keep students and staff safe.

“The minute it occurred, they were always proactive; Downey Unified has been preparing us for this opening,” said Estrella. “With our ventilation, the purifying the students’ desks, they’ve taken the guidelines and gone above and beyond.”

Estrella added that the staff at Gauldin has stayed vigilant to remain visible, transparent and answer questions when they could.

“We had our first parent meeting, and after our first parent meeting we quite a few parents decide to come back to hybrid,” said Estrella. “They want answers, parents would like their children safe, and children just want to be back on campus.”

According to statistics released by DUSD, approximately 50% of students have opted to remain in full distance learning. That holds mostly true at Gauldin, with Estrella estimating about a 51% student return rate to the campus.

Parent Iliana Miranda, who has a fifth grader and a third grader at Gaulding, said that her family was very excited to send her sons back to school.

“It’s been pretty difficult; it was hard for them in the beginning,” said Miranda. “Throughout the whole process it became even harder so they’re very excited to come back to school.”

When asked if she or her children were nervous, Miranda said that “it’s just excitement.”

“I’m not nervous or anything like that, they’re not nervous either,” said Miranda. “I think it’s everything: seeing their teachers, seeing their friends, getting out of the house, being with the other kids.”

Miranda said that it was an “easy decision” for her family.

“Me and my children, my husband and I, we just couldn’t wait to go back to school, for them to start interacting, to go to class,” said Miranda. “Distance learning is kind of difficult, because I believe they’re not learning as much as when they come here to school.”

Over at Warren, the energy was just as optimistic as it was jittery.

“I was excited, but then when the kids first actually showed up – that first group of kids – it was emotional,” said Principal Carrie White. “It’s been a ghost town with just a handful of adults on campus; to just see students walking back in with their backpacks and their computers, it was energizing, really just energizing to see them back on campus.”

According to White, Warren only saw around 35% of its students opt to return, though that number is expected to fluctuate.

“The last number I saw – which was right around last week - was right around 1200,” said White. “There are students that if they choose to come back, then we can look and we can make sure to follow the safety protocol, the number of students in a classroom, if it works in their schedule, hopefully they’ll come back.”

“We might also have students that decide ‘this doesn’t work for me; I’m going to stay on distance learning.’ After talking to all the districts that have opened, mostly in Orange County, they said you do see some movement. We also think this week will be a chance for students and families to gauge if this works or not, but more than anything I think this gives us the opportunity to work through things so hopefully will come back for summer school.”

White added that the school was hoping for a “robust summer school” to help students make up credits and classes and repair grades that may have suffered from the time away.

There are a few nerves amongst the high school’s staff, especially as teachers have witnessed some of their students lose loved ones throughout the course of the pandemic, with several losing family themselves.

White did confirm, however, that every teacher and staff member has had the opportunity to get vaccinated, if they chose to.

“Coming off of that and then being really excited for some about the vaccination, it was just wanting that second vaccination,” said White. “It took a lot of conversations, a lot of processing.  A lot of [staff] have that second vaccination, and if not they’ll have it within this next week or so.”

“I think working them through helping them understand all the safety protocol, I think the District did a really good job of going to the highest level of safety protocol, because there’s things we have to do and then there’s recommendations, and they went with a lot of the recommendations.”

There are just under 40 days remaining in the semester, leaving a little more than a sprint for students and teachers to settle into the transition and finish out the school year.

“This week is only four days. This is where we get our protocol in place, teachers figure out the technology because they’re doing simultaneous zoom,” said White. “I feel like this week is our trial and error and getting out all the kinks.”

“Then when we get back [from Spring Break], we have 35 school days and it’s really making sure we do all we can to support students so that they can finish strong and – really more than anything – hopefully we can do something for our students and get that in person graduation that we’re really hoping for.”

It is still early for any concrete discussions about end of the year activities for seniors. However, should numbers continue to trend downward as they have been in recent weeks and restrictions lessen, White is hopeful that some sort of event can be held for this year’s and last year’s senior classes.

“I think when we return from Spring Break, we have got to make decisions. I know the District is really committed – from the top, the board, Dr. Garcia, all the way down – I believe everyone is committed to giving the students the best possible option for graduation, and we really want in person even if that means multiple graduation ceremonies spread out over days kind of like the colleges do. I do not want I drive-thru; I want them to be in person with as many peers as possible, but most importantly for their family to see them cross that stage is so important...and whatever we do for the class of 2021, we do for 2020.”

“I’m committed, and I gave them my word that we will have an in-person for them. I’m hopeful that the class of 2020 will get that, and we can do it for both back-to-back. That’s my hope, but we’ll have a much better idea probably mid-April, towards the end of April, and then we’ll have to make a decision.”

Superintendent Dr. John Garcia likened students return to the “first day of school.”

It has been a long 12 months without our students, and we are overjoyed to have them back on our campuses,” said Garcia. “While we are so happy to welcome back our hybrid students, we will continue to support a robust Distance Learning program. Students will have options to be able to move from Hybrid back into Distance Learning based on what will work best for them. Over the next few weeks, we will continue to make ongoing adjustments to both our Hybrid and Distance Learning models as needed to make sure we provide the best instruction for our students regardless of the delivery method.”